WYSO Weekend: May 25, 2014

The Veteran’s Administration is at the center of a growing scandal - encompassing some 26 VA hospitals - that have been found to have excessively long waiting lists for healthcare. Several states are accused of doctoring those waiting lists to make it look like vets were getting care faster than they were, and some families of vets are saying the situation has resulted in the deaths of their loved ones. A recent investigation by the Dayton Dayton Daily News and Cox Media detailed the situation in Ohio. Today on Morning Edition, WYSO’s Jerry Kenney speaks Josh Sweigart, the reporter largely behind that investigation. Sweigart begins by telling us how that investigation was conducted.

On Wednesday, Ohio agreed to stop using solitary confinement to punish youth in its prisons. The U.S. Department of Justice and private plaintiffs had sued the state over what they said were violations of the juveniles’ constitutional rights. From Ohio Public Radio member station WCPN, Joanna Richards reports.

There’s plenty of data on Ohio elections, but it’s often not organized beyond contest, candidate and year. But Statehouse correspondent Karen Kasler reports now there’s a website that’s taken 150 years of Ohio election results to make that data more understandable, more useful, and to some, even more fascinating than it already is.

Dayton’s Oregon Historic District has a controversial aspect to it: the sound of the word. Unlike the state of Oregon, the end of which is pronounced like “begin", the proper noun used by Daytonians is pronounced Oregon—with an ending that rhymes with John. Dayton resident Jesse Clark asked WYSO Curious—why?

It’s common for people hear things that go bump in the night. But have you ever heard country and western music coming from an inanimate object? Community Voices producer Renee Wilde shares her close encounter of another kind, along with an interesting way to use a potato.

There has been a buzz in the media over the past couple of years about impending US energy independence. University of Dayton professor Bob Brecha has some thoughts on how likely this scenario is.